Saturday, December 01, 2012

•What Writer Most Turned You on to Freedom?, Atlas Shrugged movie|Video|Reason TV asked a variety of attendees to name the writer who first turned them on to the importance of freedom in human flourishing and what they see as the brightest hope for progress in 2013 and beyond. George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Hunter S. Thompson, D.H. Lawrence, and former Reason editor Virginia Postrel get shout-outs, along with many other writers.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Monday, April 25, 2011

• • •Atlas Shrugged Part I’s makers speak! Q&A with producers & actor, Atlas Shrugged movie|Video|On April 16, at Reason Foundation’s annual Reason Weekend, Nick Gillespie interviewed producers John Aglialoro, Harmon Kaslow, and Mike Marvin, and actor Matthew Marsden (he plays James Taggart) live in front of about 100 people. They talked freely about the challenges of making the film on a tight budget and an even tighter deadline; how Rand’s politics play in Hollywood (spoiler alert: poorly!); where the inspiration for the film came from; how the train and other memorable scenes were shot; and whether there’s any truth to the rumors that Atlas Shrugged Part III will be a musical.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

• •Obama’s Enron problem, The Fountainhead|Nathaniel Branden|Personal life|Video interview with Robert L. Bradley, Jr., author of Capitalism at Work, which ascribes the Enron collapse to government intervention. Ayn Rand references begin at 6:57.As I went through [Rand's] books and studied her personal life, I realized that she was party to the Enron of the Objectivist and the libertarian movement, and that is the breakup of the Nathaniel Branden Institute back in 1968. I have an appendix in the book called “The Ayn Rand Problem,” where I draw analogies between that event, which ruptured the libertarian/Objectivist movement—thousands of people were bewidered and stranded because of that—analogizing that to Enron, and I think there's a number of parallels.